


hold on to your memories

by jolie_unfiltrd



Series: jon x sansa drabbles 2021 [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Labor, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Holiday Traditions, Jon Snow and the Starks Are Not Related, Married Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Ned Stark Lives, Parents Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Rated M for language, Sansa Holly Fucking Jolly Stark, Societal expectations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28784082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolie_unfiltrd/pseuds/jolie_unfiltrd
Summary: On the back porch, child-friendly holiday punch grasped firmly in her hand, Sansa Stark is absolutely furious at her husband.(But maybe that's not the whole story).---jonsa new year drabbles, day 3:traditionstitle from new years day by taylor swift
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Series: jon x sansa drabbles 2021 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116518
Comments: 24
Kudos: 80
Collections: Jonsa New Year Drabbles





	hold on to your memories

**Author's Note:**

> Um, feel like I should warn you guys that this one gets into the feels _real_ quickly.   
> I apologize and promise that TOMORROW is back to comedy & fun and Jon Snow being Thirsty AF.

Sansa was trying very very hard not to miffed at her stupid husband and his stupid nonchalance towards the stupid holiday season.

Who, exactly, does he think decorated the entire house – adding little nutcrackers and tinsel and lights and garlands in the appropriate amount? (Excessive, obviously).

And who, she mused, does he think ordered presents for everyone in the house (including her, because gods give her _strength_ if she had to spend one more Christmas morning watching everyone in the house open presents – except for her).

Who planned the meals? Organized the activities? Made the mother- _fucking_ magic happen?

Sansa Holly Jolly Fucking Stark, that’s who.

She took another rather generous sip of her holiday punch as she sat on the back porch of her own holiday party, wishing desperately for a cigarette as she remembered how it happened.

She was ready to get in the holiday spirit, he was begrudgingly along for the ride. She asked for his help, he did one thing (setting up the blow-ups in the front yard) with great aplomb and left the rest for her.

And in a few weeks, it would be her de-magicfying their glorious, beautiful house and storing it away in the red and green holiday crates in the garage until next year.

Another gulp of punch as she turned her anger at her mother. Why did Catelyn Stark not prepare her for this?

The sex talk, check. Finance talk, check. Prenuptial agreement, _check_.

The talk about the emotional labor that it took to be a mother and a wife during the holiday season?

“Catelyn Stark, you fucking dropped the ball on that one,” she murmured into the cold, enjoying the way her breath fogged up, trying to distract herself from the onslaught of grief.

This was the first holiday season without the beloved matriarch, and it turned out that Sansa didn’t really know how to do anything without her.

Catelyn and Sansa had always kicked off the holiday season with a cookie baking party, complete with matching aprons with lascivious but festive phrases across the front. Arya always protested that she didn’t want to join, but by the second batch of chocolate-dipped macarons, she would happily be singing _Jingle Bells Rock_ and dancing around the kitchen with a ridiculous hat on.

Catelyn had come over every year before with coffee and an old record of Christmas carols on the first Saturday of December, ready to help her daughter deck the halls of the 1920s craftsman, as Jon took the kids out sledding with their cousins.

Catelyn made the punch, Catelyn hosted the parties, Catelyn set up the cookies for Santa.

Catelyn not only made the magic - she _was_ the magic.

And then she _died_ and -

Sansa set down her glass with shaking hands and let her perfectly made-up face fall into her hands, starting to cry for the billionth time that week, shoulders shaking and tears falling down her face.

She doesn’t realize that Jon has slipped out onto the back porch until he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pressing kisses into her carefully curled hair and murmuring, “I know, I know.”

“I needed her here this year,” she sobbed, pressing a hand to her swollen stomach. Their last baby, the only one Catelyn Stark would never get to meet, never get to hold in the delivery room with tears in her eyes and a fond kiss to her daughter’s forehead.

“I know,” Jon said, taking one of her hands between his and rubbing gently to warm her, eyes solid and steady and so, unbearably sad.

“I miss her so much.” She wiped tears off her cheeks, from where they dripped from her jaw, even as they kept coming, grateful, as always, that Jon loved her even when she was a blubbering mess.

“Me too,” Jon choked out, before she pulled him into her arms for an awkward, bent-over, leaning over a belly hug that was no less comforting for its contortions.

They pulled away and sat in silence together for a few moments, listening to the shrieks of their children chasing Aunt Arya through the house. Sansa gathered her thoughts, trying to tread carefully through their mourning, their grief.

“I know that you needed to step back from the holidays, this year,” she started, lifting a hand when he started to interrupt her, “I get that. It was too much. But it was also too much for me to do by myself.”

Jon grimaced and nodded. “I thought it was what you needed, to lose yourself in the work.”

Sansa lifted her hand to his cheek, looking at him and seeing the history of their decade together, of the life they’d build together. “I know,” she said, mouth lifting in a half-smile. “But next year, I want to do more of our traditions with you and me. Maybe even make some new ones?” 

Jon nodded, then started to laugh. “This is going to start with me putting away all the inflatable blow-ups _this_ year, isn’t it?”

Sansa grinned, before shooting finger guns at him playfully. “You got it, Mr. Snow.”

Jon shook his head ruefully as he stood up and offered her a hand. “As if a new baby every other year isn’t tradition enough,” he muttered, before turning to Sansa with a thoughtful look on his face. “I wonder if Lacey would be old enough that she’d actually want to help out next year?”

Their eldest daughter would be six next year, and while she looked like the spitting image of Rickon as a baby, she’d grown into her auburn curls and freckles. She was mischievous and bright and terrifyingly clever, and she’d do anything to be with her mama.

Sansa peered through the French windows to see Lacey planting a kiss on her grandfather’s cheek under the mistletoe before darting away. “I’d love that,” she said, softly, feeling the ache in her heart ease for a moment.


End file.
